


The Languors of the Pine

by heartstone



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 08:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12813693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstone/pseuds/heartstone
Summary: Tucked within the pine-forest the shadows condensed, and there He sat on a fallen log of some ancient tree, cushioned with moss and framed by the broken limbs of its snapped branches. And yet, even this temporary woodland-seat mocked Him: sturdy it bore His weight, preserved without the decay with which His powers manifested. Perfect in its undying stasis; even after it had felled and died.***Only Mairon can illume the Dark Vala's brooding.





	The Languors of the Pine

In Muted Tone

(Poem by Paul Verlaine)

***

Tranquil in the twilight dense

By the spreading branches made,

Let us breathe the influence

Of the silence and the shade.

 

Let your heart melt into mine,

And your soul reach out to me,

‘Mid the languors of the pine

And the sighing arbute-tree.

 

Close your eyes, let your hands be

Folded on your slumbering heart,

From whose hold all treachery

Drive forever, and all art.

 

Let us with the hour accord!

Let us with the gentle wind,

Rippling in the sunburnt sward,

Bring us to a patient mind!

 

And when night shall cross the air

Shall her solemn shadow fling,

Touching voice of our despair,

Long the nightingale shall sing.

***

Tucked within the pine-forest the shadows condensed, and there He sat on a fallen log of some ancient tree, cushioned with moss and framed by the broken limbs of its snapped branches. And yet, even this temporary woodland-seat mocked Him: sturdy it bore His weight, preserved without the decay with which His powers manifested. Perfect in its undying stasis; even after it had felled and died.

Yet there Melkor sat, perched atop the log untouched by rot and ruin, His hand curled in a tight fist under His chin, elbow digging a point into His thigh as He grimly stared into the distant foliage of the evergreens that huddled close to one another in the colder clime. His hair, with a mind of its own, writhed like the thinning tendrils of smoke, though there was only but faint wind like dying breath.

Jaw squared, set by strangled fury, inured longing, and a queer type of wounded pride, He moved naught as a marble idol between the pines. For every thousand years He came to these woods to conceal Himself. Mighty grew these trees: tall rose their trunks like the pillars of Illuin and Ormal, and luxuriant their canopies grew in natural shade.

Every thousand years the Ainur paused in their ministrations- the tilling the earth and the ordering of Arda- and found cause for celebration in the beauty of Eä and the master design of the One. And every thousand years Melkor turned within Himself in a dense, impenetrable darkness, expanding the mantle of His Fëa to block all sound and shape and light _(especially the light)_ that came from Almaren during this month of revelry.

Even in the North, far removed from the centre of their festivities He could hear them: their heavenly choirs and the chiming, bell-like laughter of their delight. Every celebration He watched with growing malice and choler and dejection _(and hurt)_ as the Valar blackened the sky to the colours of a newly-pressed bruise until the clouds roiled with whipping storm and burst with impending rain. O! How they mocked Him from their high capital, how the darkened sky ridiculed Him, plucked too harshly on His soul and His Discord until it snapped like an abused harp-string and curled at the fastenings!

Their need was simple: to see the firecrackers the Maiar were so fond of- to admire their joyous brilliance and vivacious bursting of colour, their radiating celebration of life- there must be a certain level of darkness. So it was that the sky grew pitch and the Ainur’s harmonious singing gave way to sighs of awe at the erupting display. So it was that Melkor sat, inconsolable in His own pitch darkness as He pondered why it was that when _He_ brewed storm clouds it was a perversion: corruption.

Thus, He did not move from His seat, the tenebrous velvet of His soul, wroth, in heavy fold around Him as the pines dropped their glossy needles in the small grove. It was there that Mairon readily found Him.

The far-spread boughs with cones of seed and scarlet berry, laden with twinkling snow-fall framed Him exquisitely in the near-darkness, and the arms of the trees moved only slightly in the breeze as the dense silence collected around His curved form. From where the fire-Maia stood, His stooped shoulders and tensed muscle spoke of the heaviness of His thoughts, hair fading into thin wisps of shadow and crystal as icy glass that spread down the regal drape of His robes in startling bone-white.

Mairon watched for a moment, as one would gasp at a comet streaking the empyrean: with wonder and admiration, holding a breath to memorize the moment in all its transcendent beauty. The details of His form: an embroidered serpent twisting around the collar of His shenyi, cinched at the waist in tight constriction to show the deep taper towards His hips from the width of His broad shoulders; the skirted panels of His chang in royal blue contrast with the dramatic obsidian length of His unadorned hair.

Mairon had been drawn to Him across the leagues from Almaren’s bright mood. Stepping into the forest was as stepping into separate reality: aura thick about Him like the vacuous Void, consuming the light and smothering the sound- eerie, the Vala’s tense mood and the sedated movement of the trees inwards towards His singularity. But Mairon held no fear: his only hesitance came at disturbing some sacred silence.

He settled poised next to the brooding Ainu on the trunk, choosing a careful distance, yet gaining Melkor’s sudden attention with the widening of His eyes like polished jet, the lack of scleras giving them them the mirrored appearance of a black dew-drop. His expression was of quickly hidden emotion- as if Mairon could not sense His turbulence of mind from the whipping of His silken hair and the hard-set shape of flexed muscle. But He relaxed with an effort in that His pale fingers settled fitfully in His lap and His mouth settled in a kinder curve.

“Ah, Mairon!” He spake, an imitation of enthusiasm, attempting to dampen the clear frustration enwritten in His body’s strained shape. “I didst not expect thee to steal from Almaren this day, far removed from thine kin, what with clear celebration.”

Mairon hummed softly in a gentle playfulness, quite unused to- but aware- of Melkor’s odd bouts of depression and ill-mood. For oft when Melkor visited his forge it was _Melkor_ who was playfully goading and Mairon who found himself annoyed with the Vala’s antics.

“Master Aulë--” Mairon began, and if Melkor had the compulsion to flinch at Mairon’s voice of loyalty to another Valar, He did not show it.

“--Master Aulë hath banned me from the smithy and mine labours, wise as He was to know that I wouldst rather work than ogle at more of Olórin’s firecrackers. But,” Mairon added slyly, “He hath forgot to mandate my attendance, assuming I wouldst attend for lack of travails to occupy mine mind.”

The Maia was rewarded with a smile, an incline of Melkor’s lips like the blooming of cherry-blossom and a yielding in His eyes to Mairon’s infecting warmth. The evergreen needles relaxed in their magnetized draw towards Melkor’s gravity and He turned more confidently towards His companion if only for a moment.

Yet still, the Vala held some torment within His breast, and still He sat not fully at ease, His hair twisted tendrils of glassy sheen, His jaw still set like stone, and His hands fumbling with the sash that held the fold of His garments in place. And still the forest felt looming and silent, foreboding and ever-watchful to the pair. All sights and sounds of distant fireworks were blotted out with Melkor’s enveloping shade like ink that stains a mistake on parchment: a black smudge attempting to cover over profane words but succeeding only in drawing the eyes to that which the author had intended to lessen attention.

But Mairon, a golden flame from within in rich brilliance burned steady, and with him he carried the fruit of his latest and secretive project: a gift, carefully crafted and honed to perfection. Melkor had retreated again easily into some distant expression, but Mairon only smiled as from within his travel-cloak he took his prized piece.

It was a simple circlet: its form clean and sloping smooth, unburdened by the frivolities of the other commissioned work: foliate patterns and stylized wings removed in favor of clean lines and elegance of form, reveling in the beauty of the materials it was crafted from, un-etched. Its marge was patinated black-gold in smooth scrolls like the tresses of His hair or the darting of His Fëa-shade which held at the front a single, large tanzanite. Polished facets set it into a bezel of metal, and it shone like stained glass atimes the colour of the deeps of the Ekkaia, at others the shade of spilt ichor, and more still the colour of violet night-blooms such that grew around Utumno. Only two others accompanied the beauty of the stone: uncut pearls in lustrous black, dangling from the swirls of the coronet’s side-flourishes.

Mairon brandished it proudly, with stifled pride at its exacting shape and Melkor within Himself had yet to notice, brooding still and staring far back into the distant forest with distracted gloom. With poise Mairon stood, the hem of his cloak in the low grass but a sigh, moving to stand in front of the other man’s knees. And Melkor snapped at once from His dream-like trance, thinking with a sudden sharpness of emotion that He had discouraged the Maia from staying. But afore Him was the circlet, and Mairon’s hands, calloused but graceful and steady as he held the band in front of the Dark Vala for His inspection.

“I hath noticed,” Mairon began, “That thou wear not a jewel around thine head, though mightiest of the Valar thou art.”

Tentatively and with practice, Mairon raised the circlet and set it upon Melkor’s head, slipping the piece in place along His temples with precise circumference, though Mairon had not measured afore its making. The weight of it, so light but smartly adorned strained Melkor none and rather freed Him with the warmth the metal radiated, echoing the jewel-smith who crafted it. The tanzanite shone brilliant so near to His power and sat splendid against the black-gold overlapping and the ivory of His now very flushed skin.

Speechless was the Vala, lips parted and eyes blinking quickly to the surprise of the gift, and Mairon stood afore Him (so _achingly_ close), their knees pressed together with innocent delight in contact, infernal eyes boring into His, but so. . . unprejudiced, not shunning Him of His soured mood. They sat there too long, perhaps, the pearls swaying in His hair (and so alike to the tincture of His eyes!), both gazing at one another with a newfound burst of some passion in the essence of their Fëa- a fondness perhaps, but more.

Yet He lingered and Mairon (thinking he failed in uplifting the Vala’s mood), stood unsure, then whispered in confused apology: “If I hath been presumptuous--” but Melkor had shed like old, unwanted skin the thoughts of Almaren and the other Ainur’s pompous disregard. Instead now, He stood abruptly as the mighty pines, with the silk of His shenyi and the crystals of frost floating, swooping downwards to grasp Mairon afore he had chance to pull from Him, gathering his slight Fána upwards to press His lips to the the startled Maia’s.

His embrace held within an enkindled fervor, untouched and sheltered: sparked by unaccustomed kindness and a near-instinctive gratitude with the intimacy of a kiss. His lips, though they moved with spontaneous confidence, waned slightly from inexperience as His arms encircled the small arch of Mairon’s sacrum, his back bowing further inwards to meet the press of His body.

Full and soft satin He caressed, the taste of ripe peaches and the bite of cinnamon, deepening the kiss when Mairon gained half a mind to return his touch with equal ardor: to drink from forbidden lips a fount of enraptured _yearning._ Melkor’s hands, shaking from the feel of the hot- near feverish- press of Mairon’s skin, interwove within the magma-wave of his hair to cup his skull, drawing him ever-nearer to the intensity of His lips. And Mairon grasped onto His shoulders, ringed fingers melting the ice, meeting His every movement despite the overwhelming pressure on his lips that left trembling pulse-waves: that gave them both shuddering tremors of electrifying pleasure.

And yet, too soon they pulled back, parting only until their lips brushed in a chaste whisper of a touch, so that they shared the same breath, eyes closed, swaying softly like the pine-needles around. Slowly did they remove themselves, unwilling but unsure: nearly clumsy did they disentangle as they regained consciousness from the haze of their instinctive, yet innocent contact.

Such non-spiritual affection was unorthodox with the Valar, and was only whispered in secret gossip amongst the Maiar: a curious and unintentional consequence of incarnation. Mairon thought, vaguely in the back of his mind, that such a trace of the lips was only one of Melkor’s eccentricities. But the kiss haunted him, leaving its imprint in his dazed memory, and oft he would think back on it, and atimes he felt his lips quiver in guarded desire for his forbidden other.

When Melkor pulled fully away, His eyes were of a softened unlight, but nervous of His sudden embrace: skin stained a rosé far too bold to go unnoticed. He turned then, ignoring the half-formed questions on both of their minds with a clearing of His throat as a rumble of distant thunder.

“Thou,” He asked, voice steady despite the quivering ripples of His Fëa, still uncertain. “Thou wilt stay?”

The circlet rested atop His head, regal but effortless, and Mairon felt a carefully cultivated smile burgeon on his reddened lips: an unfurling of petals in coirë, _the stirring before spring._ He heard not the distant celebration of Almaren’s thanksgiving to the themes of the One. So far removed, only the pine needles dared intrude with their gentle, muted hush.

**Author's Note:**

> Something a little longer I was able to finish on Thanksgiving. Melkor is such a pouty Vala but Mairon fixes that right up :D And I found a poem by a different author! (But really, I really just wanted an excuse to write about fluffy first kisses).  
> ***


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